creating a culture where a company actively trains and improves everyone skills, to better improve the company and caring of there employees

The Changing Corporate Culture Project is a multistep assignment beginning in Week 4 and continuing through Week 8. The major components of the project are as follows.

• Week 4: Topic Selection
• Week 5: Annotated Bibliography
• Week 6: Recommendations Report Draft
• Week 7: Recommendations Report Final Submission
• Week 8: Persuasive Presentation

Change is often difficult but also necessary for the long-term success of any organization. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses had to quickly pivot away from business as usual to adapt to a new reality. Formal sit-down restaurants started offering takeout, hotels changed their check-in and cleaning processes, sports venues operated without spectators, and schools switched to a distance-learning model. Even more challenging than these operational changes, however, is a change in culture. Our textbook defines culture as “the shared values, norms, rules, and behaviors of an identifiable group of people who share a common history and communication system” (p. 109). Because values, norms, rules, and behaviors normally evolve over a considerable period of time, changing the culture represents a significant challenge. Your task is to persuade an audience of decision makers at an organization of your choosing to commit to a cultural change. Your task is to convince your organization to make one of the following changes.

• Take an active stance on issues of social justice in your community.
• Commit to environmental sustainability.
• Focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring and promotion practices.
• Make your organization welcoming to people with disabilities.
• Provide a living wage and retirement benefits to all colleagues.
• Allow colleagues paid time off to engage in volunteer work.
• Include nonmanagement colleagues on the organization’s Board of Directors or leadership team.

These are not all of the possible topics. If you have a different idea, please check with your instructor first to make sure it is appropriate.

Important Note: Although reusing and recycling is great for the environment, it is not allowed here. You must use an original idea and original research for this assignment. You may not resubmit an assignment from another class.

In choosing an organization, you have a few options.

• Your current employer
• A previous employer
• An organization you have never worked for that is aligned with your career goals
• A fictional organization that may be similar to your current or previous employer or to an existing organization you might wish to work for in the future

Similarly, as you approach this assignment, you have some leeway in imagining your role in your chosen organization. You may choose to inhabit your current job title, or you may imagine yourself in a different role, or even create a brand-new job title. Take some time to think about your topic, organization, and role,  because you will be creating the entire assignment based on these choices.

Although your assignment consists of several parts, the centerpiece is the formal report that will be submitted in Week 7. Formal reports are internal documents intended to be read by other members of the organization. Reports that seek to persuade members of an organization to take action are known as recommendation reports, and that is what you will be writing. The required length of this assignment is a minimum of 1,500 words.

Required Elements of the Recommendation Report

• Title Page: Title of the report, author’s name, date
• Table of Contents: List of all major components of the report and what page each component begins on.
• Executive Summary: Brief overview of the report’s main ideas and recommendations.
• Current Situation: Analyze the current state of the organization and make the case for why the organization needs to change.
• Objectives: Explain how implementing this change will benefit the organization, its colleagues, and the community.
• Deliverables: Provide a timeline showing how and when each stage in the culture change plan will be implemented.
• Costs/ROI: Provide cost estimates for implementing these changes. Costs might include hiring additional staff, bringing in outside consultants, purchasing equipment, or renting out an offsite location for training. The return on investment, or ROI, can be thought of more broadly than in revenue terms, but there must be a way to measure the success of this cultural change. Examples might include improved colleague retention, higher client satisfaction scores, or a more positive public image.
• References: List all sources cited in the text in APA format.

Chapters 12 and 13 provide guidelines and examples to help you write and format your report.

Milestones for Report or Proposal

• Week 4: Topic Selection Assignment (50 points)
• Week 5: Annotated Bibliography (100 points)
• Week 6: Draft (80 points)
• Week 7: Final Draft (140 points)
• Week 8: Presentation (100 points)

For more details on each of these steps, see the corresponding assignment description in the appropriate module.

Tips for Success

• Choose a topic you are passionate about; after all, you’ll be working on this assignment for many weeks.
• Set aside blocks of time to work on this; ultimately, you’ll be more efficient this way.
• Stay on track with the milestones; it is easier to keep up than to catch up.
• Ask your professor if you need help.

This week, we begin the major assignment for this course with the topic selection.

For this week’s assignment, you will write a memo addressed to your instructor in which you share your plans for your Course Project. In order to convince your instructor to approve your topic, you must explain what your topic is, why you have chosen it, and how you plan to complete it successfully. You may find it helpful to divide your memo into three paragraphs: the what, the why, and the how. The recommended length of this assignment is one page. See Appendix B, Formatting for Letters and Memos, on pages 560–561, to learn more about the memo format and to see a sample memo. In addition, the Assignment Connection in the Week 4 Lesson will provide more tips and advice for choosing a strong topic.

Week 4: Topic Selection Grading Rubric

This week, you will create an annotated bibliography based on your Course Project topic. In it, you will identify four relevant, timely, and authoritative sources directly related to the topic of your report or proposal. It is highly recommended that you use the DeVry LibraryLinks to an external site., especially the databasesLinks to an external site..

Each annotation will have these elements.

• The correct APA-style reference
• A summary of the source, written in your own words (never copy the abstract)
• One brief, interesting quotation, introduced with a verb phrase, author/date citation, and page number
• A discussion of what new information you learned from the source and how you can use it

Example

Karsten, M. (2016). Gender, race, and ethnicity in the workplace: Emerging issues and enduring challenges. Praeger.

Summary: This book identifies three of the dimensions of diversity in the workplace: gender, race, and ethnicity. The book is divided into five main sections: discrimination in the workplace, harassment, diversity, family issues, and special challenges. The author explores these issues through the discussion of numerous case studies drawn from real life.

Interesting Quote: “Overall race relations in the United States often are reflected in the workplace” (p. xiii).

Insights: I learned many interesting facts about well-known companies and how they have dealt with issues of gender, race, and ethnicity in the workplace, both in the past and in more recent times. Even the most successful organizations struggle with these challenges. Because it was published in 2016, it predates the Black Lives Matter movement and other recent developments, so it needs to be supplemented by other more recently published sources to provide a fuller picture.

Tips

• Use the Cite feature in our DeVry databases as a general guide but not as a substitute for understanding correct APA citation rules.
• Pay close attention to capitalization and italics.
• Put your sources in alphabetical order by the lead author’s last name.
• Try using search terms such as change management or workplace culture as a starting point, and then move on to terms more specifically related to your topic choice.

Submit your assignment as an APA-style document. The Assignment Connection in the Week 5 Lesson will provide more tips and advice.

Week 5: Annotated Bibliography Grading Rubric

This week you will submit a draft of your recommendation report. It does not have to be perfect, but it needs to reflect your best effort. It should include at least the following sections.

• Title Page: Title of the report, author’s name, date
• Table of Contents: List of all major components of the report and what page each component begins on
• Executive Summary: Brief overview of the report’s main ideas and recommendations
• Current Situation: Analyze the current state of the organization and make the case for why the organization needs to change
• References: List all sources cited in text in APA format

The Objectives, Deliverables, and Costs/ROI are not required for the rough draft but will be required for the final draft, due at the end of Week 7.

Because the final draft must be at least 1,500 words long, your rough draft should be at least half that length, or 750 words (longer is ok). For more information on the proper formatting of a recommendation report, see the Assignment Connection in the Week 6 Lesson.

Week 6: Draft Grading Rubric

This week you will submit the final version of your recommendation report. The final draft will include the following elements.

• Title Page: Title of the report, author’s name, date
• Table of Contents: List of all major components of the report and what page each component begins on
• Executive Summary: Brief overview of the report’s main ideas and recommendations
• Current Situation: Analyze the current state of the organization and make the case for why the organization needs to change.
• Objectives: Explain how implementing this change will benefit the organization, its colleagues, and the community.
• Deliverables: Provide a timeline showing how and when each stage in the culture change plan will be implemented.
• Costs/ROI: Provide cost estimates for implementing these changes. Costs might include hiring additional staff, bringing in outside consultants, purchasing equipment, or renting out an offsite location for training. The return on investment, or ROI, can be thought of more broadly than in revenue terms, but there must be a way to measure the success of this cultural change. Examples might include improved colleague retention, higher client satisfaction scores, or a more positive public image.
• References: List all sources cited in text in APA format.

As previously noted, the minimum required length is 1,500 words. Microsoft Word and other similar programs will show your word count to help you make sure your assignment meets the length requirement.

Week 7: Final Draft Grading Rubric

This week you will submit your presentation based on your recommendation report. It will consist of approximately seven slides, accompanied by an audio recording of about 7 minutes in total (or about 1 minute per slide).

The basic slide structure should be as follows.

• Title slide with title of presentation, student name, name of the class, and the date
• An overview or contents slide previewing the main points to be covered
• A current situation slide analyzing the current state of the organization and making the case for cultural change
• An objectives slide explaining the goals of the proposed cultural change
• A deliverables slide with a timeline showing how and when each stage in the culture change plan will be implemented
• A costs/ROI slide providing an overview of the costs and benefits of this cultural change.
• A references slide, including all sources cited in the presentation in APA format.

In creating your presentation, keep in mind the following advice.

• A presentation is meant to be a high-level overview. It is not intended to be as detailed as the recommendation report. Assume that your audience has access to your recommendation report, and don’t try to cram too much information into the slides.
• Reports and proposals are primarily text-based documents, but presentations are highly visual. Make your slides visually engaging by providing charts, graphs, and illustrations.
• For each slide, try to limit the number of bullets to about four and the number of words in each bullet phrase to 10 or fewer. Use phrases with strong verbs rather than whole sentences.

See the Assignment Connection in the Week 7 Lesson for more tips and advice on creating an effective presentation with audio narration.

Week 8: Presentation Grading Rubric